by Sister Julie on June 3, 2008
Father Martin has signed off for the rest of the afternoon but will check in again this evening to answer any more questions that have emerged (Augustine and Karen, I just saw yours come in). If we missed your question, please let us know by commenting below. Do check the blog later so you can read Father Martin’s final comments.
I also encourage you to read Father Martin’s newest book, A Jesuit Off-Broadway: Center Stage with Jesus, Judas, and Life’s Big Questions. It recently won First Place in the Catholic Press Association’s category “Popular Presentation of the Catholic Faith”.
What more popular presentation of the faith can there be than an engaging story as this by one of America’s best Catholic writers about his experience as an adviser to (and then being invited to be a member of) a Broadway company doing a play about Jesus and Judas? This is a charming, highly readable book about our faith in the modern world, very well presented, brightened by humor and warmed by the author’s connection with an keen understanding of the lives we Catholics lead in the world we inhabit.
And remember … all who have commented today will be entered in a raffle for Father Martin’s book My Life with the Saints. I will contact the winner by email tomorrow.
If you’d like to purchase a copy of My Life with the Saints, the publisher Loyola Press is offering you a 35% discount on the book. You can order at www.loyolabooks.org/martin or by calling Loyola Press toll-free at 800-621-1008. Please use the code 2679 to receive the 35% discount off the hardcover or paperback of My Life with the Saints. This offer is good through June 8, 2008.
by Sister Julie on June 3, 2008
Crystal: This question is sort of off-topic, but I was wondering if you could say a bit about the Ignatian style of imaginative prayer that is a conversation with Jesus. Thanks
Father Martin: Actually, there is a long explanation of that in my chapter on St. Ignatius in My Life with the Saints. But briefly put, “Ignatian prayer” or “Ignatian contemplation” uses the imagination as a way to help people enter into a scene from Scripture, or to enter into a “discussion” with Jesus. For example, if you were looking at the story of the Sermon on the Mount, you might imagine yourself listening to Jesus speaking, and would ask the following questions in your prayer to set the scene: What do I see? What do I hear? What do I feel? What do I smell? What do I taste? In this way you “compose the place,” as St. Ignatius said, in your imagination, as a way of entering more deeply into the Scripture passage. And then you see what happens. Sometimes you are rewarded with new insights about that Bible story, and sometimes your emotion about what you are seeing reveals something new about yourself, about Jesus, or about God. In this case, for example, you might find yourself a little surprised that you are frightened about following all of the beatitudes, which might lead you into a good prayer about what is really required to follow Jesus. That’s just one example.
As for talking with Jesus, Ignatius calls these discussion “colloquies” in which you imagine Jesus before you and you speak to him in a “familiar” way as you would a friend. Essentially, Ignatius reminds us that our imagination is simply another way through which God communicates to us.
by Sister Julie on June 3, 2008
Christian W: Father Martin, God Bless You, and thank you for taking the time to visit on Sister Julie’s blog today.
I first heard you conducting an interview on the Saintcast podcast talking about your books. Then, not too long after, I was attending the Los Angeles Religious Education Congress and found myself at the Loyola Press display. ‘My Life with the Saints’ was on sale at a special price for the exhibit - so I purchased a copy.
The only other biographical-style book I have ever purchased prior to your book is ‘The Story of a Soul.’ I bought that book because St. Therese helped to bring me back into the Church in my mid 30’s. I focused on St. Therese because she is the Patroness of my Diocese (Fresno, CA). Oh, and did I mention my parish is the Shrine of St. Therese in Fresno? Coming back to the Church and listening to homilies relating to an ordinary girl from Lisieux made me realize that any of us can be called to do something extraordinary. It also inspired me to get her story in her words.
Your stories on how you were introduced to each of the saints in your book are enjoyable, but it leads me to my question. How does an ordinary lay person cull through all of the Saints and find some biographies and other stories about these amazing lives and find the right one that might affect our own lives in some way. Additionally, how can we use these Saints to help better spread the word of God and the Church today.
I look forward to reading ‘A Jesuit Off-Broadway’. Thank you again for your time.
Father Martin: First of all, St. Therese is one of the very best saints to start with, because her spirituality of the “Little Way” (doing small things with great love for God) can be applicable to everyone’s life. So keep following her example and praying to her! As for books to read, at the back of my book I include a long list of good and accessible biographies of each of the saints that I talk about. But let me recommend a few other general books which themselves include helpful bibliographies. First, Richard McBrien’s “Lives of the Saints,” and, second and third, Robert Ellbergs “All Saints” and “Blessed Among all Women.” Additionally, I would ask those people whom you know are devoted to one or another saint to ask for a recommendation.
As for your second question, we can use the saints lives to spread the word of God best showing, through their lives, how God works in unique ways in each of us. The Saints show us what it means to be holy in “this particular way,” as Karl Rahner said. So they help us to become holy in our own ways. And the stories of the saints always lead us back to the Gospels because all their lives were patterned on, and followed, the life of Christ.
"She wrote the way she lived: on the fly, without retrospect, always on the way, climbing higher."